Past is past, and if one remembers what one meant
to do and never did, is not to have thought to do enough? - James Schuyler
Probably been close to four decades since the UK’s august Athletics Weekly opened an important piece with ‘No less an expert than Jack Welch…’ Those were the days.
Like Charles Bukowski, Jim Harrison and Jerry Lewis, I receive far more respect across The Pond than I do at home. And I don’t mean my family.
Mystical Miles, the European continent’s finest running periodical, includes me in their latest edition. Page 47. I asked for a translation from the Dutch. I only know hardloppen.
“Below the English version of the small article we put into the last edition of Mystical Miles. We’re just proud someone with a press pass that has our name on it was allowed to visit that event…”
It took us six months and eight attempts with three different organizations (all of which claimed they were the right party to handle it) before we finally obtained a press accreditation for Jack D. Welch, allowing him to get “inside the fence” and access “key locations” at the World Cross Country Championships last January in Tallahassee, Florida.
Jack D. lives, as they say in America, around the corner—315 kilometers (196 miles), about a three-and-a-half-hour drive away. But both Brooksville, where Jack D. lives, and Tallahassee are in the same state, Florida. So. by American standards, that’s not far at all.
Jack D. is getting on in years and walks with difficulty. He is the co-founder and publisher of the very first running magazine ever published in America, – [fact check! Runner’s World was first] – and he knows every runner of note over the age of fifty by name. Later this year, we hope he will share an account of his adventures. His stories have graced the pages of several editions of Mystical Miles.
Long live Jack D.
Long live Jack D., indeed. But maybe more mobile in less pain.
Wish I felt as good as I did at the World Athletics Cross-Country Championships in Tallahassee. Gator Legend Roy “OG” Benson carried my bags and esteemed coach Dave Reinhart drove me hither and yon. In January, I wasn’t sick with my own case of Kyle Busch Disease.
By the end of February, felt so good, I did an hour of pool action daily, four days in a row – consecutively – and was subsequentially housebound most of March.
April 10. Got our blood tested and as we sat in the examination room, the door burst open and it’s our doctor with a big smile and he said, “Boy, am I happy to see you two.” Turns out he has been busy giving one senior citizen, and his or her spouse, the very worst medical diagnosis all day long and here it is late afternoon and it’s us. Mr. & Mrs. Dog. And we have passed every single exam with flying colors. Would have danced if I could. Asked for an extra biscuit.
Jeff Bezos be hard pressed to have a better television system than we do. And so we watch British shows like startingly twisty “Line of Duty.” And art shows like “Landscape Artist Of The Year.” Snowdonia is a real place, can you believe it?
April 23. Haven’t walked my dog in almost two years now. Makes me so sad, but I suspect he’s enjoying his retirement. Instead of five or six miles of power walking – virtually running with Benji or Billy – scampering fartlek-like from one shady patch to the next, The Notorious RBG gets to stroll around the block for maybe eight hundred meters, while stopping to sit in that cool garage with his girlfriend.
Imagine you are a new painter who binges on painting shows and it’s early morning in Florida with the sun dappling through the cypress, you bliss out in the surprisingly low humidity and step into a gopher tortoise den. You hear the bone in your foot fracture with a “crunch” and remember rattlesnakes often use gopher tortoise dens for their own home.
Imagine you are the husband who doesn’t hear the screaming. Who never answers his phone’s ring.
So, anyway, an octogenarian with a bad heart down the street heard the screaming. Ran up the hill and yelled in my face shortly thereafter. Ragnar’s girlfriend.
Nine hours in the emergency room hallway (x-ray). Five days in the hospital (boot). She’s on the sixth floor and I am visiting every day, forced to park by the homeless camp on the edge of the lot and limp across the hot pavement past numerous empty spots reserved for the disabled. Flowers wilted before I could get to her private room.
Still have the heart of the guy who parks far away but not the legs. Next day, I have a Florida Disabled Person Parking Permit. My new super power. Washed my first load of laundry since the 1900s.
Eight days at Evergreen Woods (physical therapy). Not private. I broke the missus out of there shortly after the demented roommate at three a.m. pummeled her broken foot and demanded, “I need my pills!”
Home. Two steps a mountain hard to climb with one foot. But she’s inside. Where she belongs. Finally. Even if hobbled in a bigass boot for eight to ten weeks. We hugged, we kissed, she coughed.
Think Kyle Busch. Both of us sick for weeks. I lost ten pounds and forgot a phone date with Marty Liquori.
Meanwhile, Dr. Oz is in charge of our medical insurance.
Religious as we are, can’t help but call upon our recovery mantra, the eternally wise words of guru Chumbawamba, “I get knocked down, I get up again.”
Referenced Kyle Busch as a warning. The shot won’t fix you. Take the next chest cold seriously. Meanwhile, she still has a broken foot and I postponed my knee replacement consult until next month. Somebody has to drive the car.
Last week at knee specialist, patient survey re depression, final query:
20. “Have you ever thought of killing yourself?” or “Have you ever thought you would be better off dead?”
That is two different questions, I told’em.
“Portrait Artist of The Year”
is another good show.